Hi.me and my buddies are considering running a poker tournament annually from next year.our idea is to hold 10 semi finals around the country with 10 players qualifying from each semi to the grand final.a buy in of 500 euros with minimum 50000 to the winner.what i would like to know with a 1st prize of that size are we likely to fill a lot of places in the semis to cover prize money and running costs.all imput is welcomed as this would be our first major tournament coming from running cery small local leagues.also is it normal to get entry mobey in advance of the tournament .thanks.

Don't do it. There are already loads of poker operators in Ireland and they are currently struggling to not clash with each other on weekends so as to not limit their potential pool of players. Running poker games would not be the big earner you and you buddies think it is unless you are doing it full time and have a solid pack of regular players.

Also the 50k first prize would use up all of the money collected from the 10 semi-finals. First place would usually be 20-30% of the prizepool so you are leaving a lot of money required by buy-ins directly to the final. Taking even 50% as an unusually high first prize amount (could be the gimmick of the tournament) you'd need another 100 players paying €500+ each. The semi-finals would need 50 players paying €100 plus reg or 100 players paying €55-60. This would look very ambitious and would be a stretch for someone like JP/Stephen McLean/DPN/Larry to take on.

That's all ignoring the spelling and grammar used that wouldn't bode well for all the admin and marketing that would be required to make something like this work. And by work I mean break-even, not make the operator a large profit. Sorry if I appear overly-critical.